The present invention pertains to head suspension assemblies for miniature fixed disk drives and more specifically to low profile head suspension assemblies and the methods for manufacturing them.
In the computer industry, there is a constant demand for products that are both smaller and have higher performance. The hard disk drive used in virtually every personal computer is one of the largest and most expensive components installed therein. Thus, disk drive manufacturers have continuously tried to decrease the size and the cost of their drives while at the same time increasing the amount of mass storage provided.
The computer industry has developed certain standard sized disk drive configurations that will fit into a given bay in their computers. These standard sizes are often referred to as a disk drive""s form factor. The challenge facing disk drive manufacturers, therefore, is to fit as much storage as possible into a standard sized package. One way of solving this problem is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,712 which is hereby incorporated herein by reference and which is assigned to the same assignee as this application. The various embodiments of the present invention improve upon the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,712 by further reducing the height of the load beam suspension assembly, thereby reducing the spacing between the disks and enabling either a reduction in the height of the drive, or the addition of disks while maintaining the same height.
A general object of the present invention is to provide a practical way to manufacture a disk drive having a height reduced head stack.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a disk drive in which tines of an E-block of a rotary actuator are substantially aligned with data storage disks, and wherein a plurality of head suspension assemblies are attached to the tines in an arrangement enabling off-disk swaging of swage bosses of the assemblies to openings defined through the tines.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a rotary voice coil actuator arrangement wherein a head suspension assembly may be swaged to a tine of an E-block of the actuator at an off-disk position which is in substantial registration with a longitudinal axis of the actuator assembly including the head suspension assembly, E-block and voice coil.
The above and other preferred features of the present invention, including various novel details of construction and combination of parts, will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings and pointed out in the claims. It will be understood that the particular device embodying the invention is shown by way of illustration only and not as limitations of the invention. As will be obvious to those skilled in the art, the principles and features of this invention may be employed in various and numerous embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.
The present invention overcomes the problems and disadvantages of the prior art through a unique head suspension assembly. The head suspension assembly of the present invention extends from a tine of an E-block (having at least one tine and usually several tines). The head suspension assembly is designed such that the tines of the E-block do not have to enter the space above or beneath any of the data storage disks of the disk drive. An elongated extender is fastened to each tine and preferably a peg-leg load beam is attached to each elongated extender. Preferably, marginal tabs and a reverse flange are formed integrally along the peripheral edge portion of the load beam. A data transducer head is affixed to a gimbal at the outer end of each load beam. Head conductor wires are dressed from the heads, along the reverse flanges and bonded to each of the marginal tabs.
In one aspect of the present invention, a swage boss of the head suspension assembly for swage-attachment to an opening of the tine faces in the same direction as the head slider mounted to the gimbal at the outer end of the load beam.
These and other objects, advantages, aspects and features of the present invention will be more fully understood and appreciated upon consideration of the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment, presented in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.